Pregnancy Month 2: "We started taking belly pictures."

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For many women, it’s the second month of pregnancy when things start to feel more real. In weeks five through eight, you may have your first pre-natal doctor appointment, and hear the heartbeat for the first time. This early in the pregnancy, many couples still keep the news to themselves. If they do tell, it’s usually just with very close friends and family. It’s a personal decision, but it can be hard to contain the good news!

Keeping a pregnancy a secret is usually not too difficult during the second month, unless of course, you have a very curious older child, as New York City-based mom Emily Bendler discovered. “During my first pregnancy, my husband would take pictures of my belly each week so we could document my progress. During my second pregnancy, my son was two-and-a-half and he thought that the pictures with my belly out were hilarious. He started joining in and showing off his belly in every picture. Now, I am just six weeks pregnant with my third and we have not yet told the kids that I'm pregnant. However, we did want to start taking the weekly belly pictures. My now four-and-a-half-year-old saw this and asked: 'Why are you taking a picture with your belly out?' I think he found us out!”

During this second month, many parents sign up for online pregnancy newsletters, apps, and websites to get a peek into the pregnancy journey. Manhattan-based mom, Emily Hsu is one such mom. “Like most other pregnant moms, I signed up for an online pregnancy calendar pretty soon after finding out that we were expecting. Every week, the newsletter would compare the size of the fetus to a different fruit. I would take a moment and draw the fruit on the top of my pregnancy journal before starting to write about the physical changes and emotional discoveries. The quiet moment when I was drawing the fruit was a bonding moment for me and [my] unborn child. Even now, I sometimes call my daughter 'my little blueberry' or 'my silly watermelon!'"

Even though Jen from Baltimore also thought the food comparisons were funny, she had a slightly different reaction. “I had mixed emotions about the sites that would track how big the babies were based on food – loved the idea of it, but in practice I always ended up not being able to eat those foods!"

Your second month of pregnancy is the perfect time to start writing down your thoughts and feelings so you can share them with your child once they arrive. When you look back, you’ll be surprised how long ago it all seems and how much you’ve forgotten along the way.

This article is part of our Pregnancy Month-by-Month series. Parents who have "been there" share their memories with parents just starting their journey toward parenthood. To read the next article in the series, click here.

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